I noticed that a lawsuit by publishers against Archive.org has been decided in favor of the publishers. The web coverage of this decision is uniformly one-sided, calling it unfair and illegal.
After reading the actual decision, it’s obviously correct and should be uncontroversial. There’s no question of free speech or censorship. The books in question are all current best-sellers, properly copyrighted and registered, not just Disney “intrinsic copyrighted”. The publishers thus have a serious monetary interest in the property, which is the most important part of IP.
Here’s the part I didn’t know before: Libraries have licensing arrangements for e-books. Most of this licensing and checking out runs through a few commercial Aggregators who take care of the details.
Archive.org didn’t pay for licenses. Instead, it bought or borrowed single copies of the books, scanned them, and checked out openly without paying anything to the property owners.
Again, money and licensing are the key factors, not “rights” or “freedom”. When a property has real value and is clearly owned and defended, you can’t borrow it without permission and then loan it out. Apartments have similar restrictions on subleasing and permanent boarders.
I also noticed that GoogleBooks has changed its reader mode this morning, making it much harder to download a PDF. This may be a glitch. I’ve seen it a couple times before. Or it may be a response to the lawsuit? /// A bit later: It was a glitch, and is gone.
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Since I’m an author dealing with publishers, is the part about libraries and Aggregators a fact I should have known? I looked at one of my old contracts, and the detailed statement from an old royalty payment. The publisher rents e-books directly, which do show up on the statement. (A few pennies.) But there’s nothing about libraries or Aggregators.
Polistra's Mill 